1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a zero insertion force socket having a cover movable with respect to a base thereof, particularly one which has a single-point driving mechanism for moving the cover with respect to the base.
2. The Prior Art
Zero insertion force (ZIF) sockets have been used to connect a CPU to a printed circuit board for years. Normally, this socket needs a relatively long pitch for accommodating a lead-in distance of each contact which allows a corresponding CPU pin to be inserted into the socket with substantially zero insertion force firstly and then moved by a cover of the socket for this lead-in distance to abut against contacting portion of the contact in the socket. These sockets may be referred to U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,057,031 and 5,730,615. For effectively utilizing the space of the socket and lowering the profile thereof the inventor of the present invention has proposed a low profile socket in U.S. application Ser. No. 09/146,998 which arranges the moving direction of the cover of the socket in a diagonal line and the normal actuation mechanism including the cam and the lever being omitted for space conservation. Although this configuration works well, it still needs two points for driving the cover to move with respect to the base in opposite directions, i.e., to drive the socket between an open status and a close status. With two driving points, two operational spaces nearby the driving points have to be preserved, and this violates the compact size trend in the manufacture of a personal computer especially a note book computer. It is requisite to provide a new socket with single-point driving mechanism for conserving space.